In my opinion, interpersonal conflicts that occur with people you want to maintain good relationships with are the hardest to resolve. It is very difficult to express your displeasure without provoking the other party. Below is what I have experienced, please provide suggestion if you have any.
During the NUS netball club AGM meeting last year (an event where a new committee is elected by the seniors), B gave her speech and promised to stay committed to the club. She said, “Actions speak louder than words. There is no point if a person gives a perfect speech but do not carry out actions after that.” Impressed by her speech, the seniors appointed her as the deputy marketing director. After that election, I was the marketing director while B and two other girls became the deputies. Everything changed after B was successfully appointed as she did not practice what she preached. Right from the first marketing meeting to the last meeting, B did not attend any of it. She did not reply to majority of the handphone messages we sent. Furthermore, she failed to do the works assigned to her. In other words, she did nothing for the club.
Once, B offered to help us by editing and adding some necessary changes to the proposal that we did without her. This was after she had failed to attend the meeting where the other deputies and I did the proposal to be sent out to various companies. I felt that it would be rude for me to go ahead to use the proposal without her opinions in it and I did not want her to feel left out. Thus I agree to B’s offer and gave her a deadline for it. But one month after the deadline, I still did not receive the proposal. Throughout that whole month, I sent her handphone messages to ask about the proposal. Either she did not reply or said that she had email it to me. All along, I have been giving in and waited for her to no avail. In the end, I decided to go ahead to use and send out the proposal without B’s consensus because time was running out.
Doing marketing was really tedious and there was a lot to be done. We need to send out numerous emails, reply enquiries, call up companies, travel all around Singapore to meet companies, prepare documents, collect sponsored items and many more. Although we have openly expressed to B during general meetings that we are having problems coping with the heavy workload, B did not help. Finally, the day of our event was approaching and everyone was extremely busy with the preparations. B again, did not help at all, she even stop coming for meetings. B only appeared at the day of event.
We had tried to approach B to talk things out. But she always appeared to be bubbly and very nice to us, like nothing had happen before. Thus I just let the matter rest and give her some more chances. Thinking back, I should have show more concern to her and know the reasons behind her actions.
On one occasion, C approached me. He was the founder of the club and thus holds quite an amount of respect in the club, C knew what was going on and requested me as the marketing director to sack B or do not reward B with any CCA points. I was caught in a difficult position as I knew that it would be unfair to my other deputies if I do nothing. This was because the other deputies have put in a lot of effort while B did not and yet B could have the CCA points. But I did not want to make things difficult for B and I did not want to sour this relationship with her. Meanwhile, C is giving me pressure to sack B. Can you suggest what should I do?
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Dear Miss Loy,
You are caught in a difficult situation. Just as you mentioned, it would be nice to show your concern and understand B’s situation. Perhaps B had his/her problems in participating as much as expected. Similarly, you could also voice your concern about B to C and offer another possible solution such that it will not damage much of your relationship with them. For example, you may want to award B her CCA points as she may needs it and engage B in other form of contribution to the club in the next committe besides holding a position which requires heavy responsibility and time. I hope this can help you. Take good care!
hi mongshi,
I empathize with you on the difficulties of wanting to be fair and yet at the same time because B is your friend, it is very hard to sack her without ruining your friendship.
I think there are many ways of viewing this matter and the decision you ultimately take depends very much on your personal values. In this case, it would be a conflict of role identities between wanting to maintain a friendship and fulfilling your roles as a marketing director.
You must understand that if you choose to protect her, you would be condoning her actions, ultimately you would also be the one to suffer. At the same time, it is also unreasonable to dismiss her position without amble warning. I would suggest this: implement a logbook system for your department, which she has to write down all she has done for the club up to this point, and ask her to continue to document her contributions to the club. If she claims credit for something which she has not done, explain it to her that she has not contributed in this manner, and remove the entry from the logbook. Let her understand that the logbook is not for show, it is to help you give credits and grades at the end of the semester for CCA points. The reason for this system is because that you have too many things on your mind and you cannot remember what everyone has done, therefore this system is to help you award credits for achievement at the end of the semester.
Hopefully, she gets the message that if she doesnt do work, she gets no credit and changes her working attitude. If she doesn't, justify your reasons for not giving her credit by prove of the logbook that she has not contributed significantly to the club. It is possible at this point she may use her friendship to 'blackmail' you into giving her credit. In this case: I would advise to make your stand clear, hold the ground and firmly say no. This is your respect for the club and your respect for her as an individual. There is no free lunch in this world. If she chooses to end friendship with you because of this, well, i would suggest its good that you get to see her true colours so easily.
Ultimately, depending on your values, you can always choose to do nothing and let the situation continue as it is. Directly sacking her would be heartless and unreasobable at this point because according to what I have read from your post, she doesnt seems to have received amble warning.
Dear Mong Shi
As the Marketing Director and to be fair to the other members in the team, you should talk to B. But of course, you should not start the conversation by stating all her faults and blame her. You should show your concern and find out why B is behaving like that. She may have been facing some problems at home or school that has caused her to miss all the meetings. Talk to her nicely and let her feel that you are trying to help her and not want to ‘punish’ her. And at the same time, let her know that her absence at the meetings have cause inconvenience and delay.
If she really does have problems, discuss all possible solutions with her and see which one can work out for the good of both her and the club. Do not just sack her.
Hi Mong Shi,
It appears that B is being a free-rider and has the intention of skipping all meetings and not being involve in any activities. I can totally relate how you felt at that moment as I was plagued by a similar problem.
We too had a project to be completed in a specific period of time and had an inactive member who refuses to reply smses, phone calls and attend meetings. This has irritated and annoyed the rest of the group members. Similarly, we have approached her and expressed our concerns. But there wasn’t any improvement.
Hence this time round I decided to approach her alone to have a heart to heart talk. To my surprise, I found out that her father has been admitted in the hospital and is in critical condition. Since she has to shuttle between school and the hospital, she has no time to neither attend meetings nor meet online for discussion. Therefore we decided to assign her work such as report writing that she can work from home.
For your case I understand that the group has tried to approach her. Since it is a big group that approaches her, it is unlikely for her to indulge her personal problems. Maybe you can try to engage a heart to heart talk to find out the reason why she is acting so strangely?
Hello Mong Shi!!!
Well, it is good to keep a fine line between work and friendship.
Stuck in your situation, I would definitely not give the credit to B. The simple fact is that B did not do anything for the club. B does not deserve the points at all.
To keep the friendship, it will be advisable for you to have a heart-to-heart talk with her. However, it is really important to understand the rationale of her not turning up for meetings and replying to all your SMSes. No matter what reasons she state, you have to be frank with her that she cannot award her any CCA points.
I believe you have a good EQ. You can definitely handle the situation well.
=)
Dear Miss Loy,
I fully agree with what Alicia mentioned to find out the underlying reason for the underperformance of your friend. I too faced such problems like this when I managed a committee in my hall, but I failed to do what Alicia mentioned.
Back then, some members simply just missed the meeting when I told them the day before and they agreed to come. But there is a particular member that always failed to turn up. I felt that I had the duty to exercise my power as I did not want the other members to follow suit with what he is doing. At first, I just nagged at him a little. As the frequency increased, I gave him verbal warning and to a stage that I even sent him warning letters and eventually took them out of the committee.
Hey Mongshi,
You are stuck in between for this situation. I believe most of us will encounter such similar cases during work times.
I feel that you should solve this matter in a much appropriate way which is to talk nicely to B and ask what exactly happen to her. If she really encounters any problem in school or at home, you girls (as a team of netball girls) will definitely help and support her.
I also encountered such situations before during my secondary school times.One of my members had not been turning up for meetings and handing up her assigned work. Everyone had been complaining of her and even want to kick her out of the committee. Thus, I approached her individually in a nice way. And i realized that she had real difficulty in her studies so she needs more time to deal with it. She also keep apologized to me. Instead of reprimanding her, i gave her my full support and even coach her in her studies. I also discussed this matter with the rest of my members and decided to let her stay in the committee, and assigned her some easy task to suit her schedule. Everyone had been understanding as we know that we belong to a team - team spirit and she did not take us for granted too!
I believe after so many comments you heard, you will know how to handle this matter more wisely! :)
Cheers!
Hi Mongshi,
After reading your post, my opinion would be to follow C’s advice to dismiss B for a very simple reason, we must always separate work from personal ties. I know that its easier say than done and maybe more should be revealed before I have a “judgement” on B. But merely from the blog posting itself, it shows that B is utterly irresponsible and even if she had personal problems that bog her down from discharging her duties, she should have made them known to the club and seek and possible solution to her inability to contribute.
If B is a good friend of yours, maybe you should approach and inform her that her absence is causing unhappiness in the club and that they strongly approve a replacement for her position. On your part as a good friend, you should try to find out what contributes to her behaviour. I think that you must be honest and straightforward in this matter as being too “friendly” in your approach would do her more harm then good. If she listens to your advice now, maybe this could save her from being dismiss and she won’t miss out from the important CCA points. But generally, my advice is to separate work from personal ties, as hard to execute as it maybe, it’s always a necessity to act upon the greater good.
Dear Mong Shi,
Like Joanna, I feel that B should be dismissed from the committee if she continues to not come for meetings. Having the experience of having a "free rider" in my group project, I fully understand the agony of having do extra work due to another person's irresponsibility. It was extremely difficult for me, as I have to do the person's work in addition to my own.
What would be good first would be to have talk with B but it seemed like you have exhausted that source and she still did not seem to respond to your reminders. Hence, since she was not interested in negotiating a win-win situation, it would be best to dismiss her from the committee.
Dear Mong Shi,
Like Joanna, I feel that B should be dismissed from the committee if she continues to not come for meetings. Having the experience of having a "free rider" in my group project, I fully understand the agony of having do extra work due to another person's irresponsibility. It was extremely difficult for me, as I have to do the person's work in addition to my own.
What would be good first would be to have talk with B but it seemed like you have exhausted that source and she still did not seem to respond to your reminders. Hence, since she was not interested in negotiating a win-win situation, it would be best to dismiss her from the committee.
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